I am an Entrepreneur with a passion to solve world's biggest challenges with innovative technologies. I am founder of Moon Express, inome, intelius, TalentWise, World Innovation Institute and Infospace.
I am a trustee of the board at the X PRIZE Foundation where we are focused on finding entrepreneurial solutions to address the global challenges in health, education, poverty, agriculture, and clean water.
I am on the board of Singularity University, an interdisciplinary university with the mission to educate and inspire leaders to address humanity’s grand challenges through innovative technologies.
I am a member of Pacific Council on International Policy and the Explorer club.
In addition to Forbes, I am also a regular contributor to WSJ, Huffington Post and Inc.
I have been awarded many honors for his entrepreneurial successes and leadership skills including “Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year”, “Albert Einstein Technology Medal” for pioneers in technology, “Top 20 Entrepreneurs” by Red Herring, “Most admired Serial Entrepreneur” by Silicon India and “Lifetime Achievement Award” for the leadership in the technology industry and support of other entrepreneurs.

Dear Entrepreneur: Stop Dreaming and Just Launch That Start-up

The most frequently asked question I hear first-time entrepreneurs ask is, “How do I know when to launch my product?”

The answer, more often than not, should be: “Now!” The reality is that most successful businesses are the ones that get to market quickly and then out-execute the competition.

Many entrepreneurs believe they need to perfect their products before the outside world sees them. Nothing could be farther from the truth. The key is to build a working product, get it in the hands of customers, and then continue to make tweaks based on feedback from them.

One great example is Microsoft. Early versions of Microsoft Word left a lot to be desired. However, to the company’s credit, it quickly learned where Word fell short, made the necessary changes, and repeatedly introduced new versions of the software. The fact is that, if you are solving a real need among your customers, they will be extremely forgiving and, in many cases, give you the information you need to build better versions of the product.

Another myth that prevents entrepreneurs from getting to market fast is the belief that they need to develop a truly “first of its kind” product. In reality, a large percentage of successful companies have focused on making a new twist on an existing product or service. In fact, around 1997 when Google launched, many people asked, “Why do we need another search engine when we have Yahoo and AltaVista?” (Yes, that seems laughable now!) Google knew it had a compelling offering, got it to market quickly, and has continued to improve the product ever since.

Moreover, there’s also a real danger in waiting to get to market. While you’re worrying whether or not your product is ready, the competition is on the verge of eating your lunch. The point to remember here is that it’s all about speed to market and execution.

To that end, here are three tips that will help you get to market quickly:

Don’t allow yourself to brainstorm to death.

Don’t spend countless hours trying to perfect the business plan or tinkering with the product pre-launch. Attempting to guess how your customers will react to your creation is pointless. Get ACTUAL feedback from them instead.

Accept the fact your product may look nothing like it does today a year from now.

To the point above, you may be determined to go in one direction but quickly discover that the market pulls you in another. Go where your customers take you! For example, did you know that Sony’s first product was a rice cooker? Since abandoning the rice cooker, it has merely managed to become the world’s biggest consumer electronics company.

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This is very sound advice. I think many people are afraid to take that big leap into business because they believe their product must be a genius idea that will be an instant big hit. I would love to know how many successful companies started with a failed product that was later improved. I think the first iteration is rarely the best, so it is essential to plan for some real flops also. A first failure should not prevent you from moving on to plan B. Sometime the key is just to put yourself out there, learn the ropes and actually launch the brilliant idea when everything else is in place and you feel ready for it.

Not everyone should be an Entrepreneur. Great ideas and mediocre entrepreneurialship leads to disaster.

I suggest that before you leap, you read Carol Roth’s book “The Entrepreneur Equation”. She does an excellent job of painting not only the upside of being an entrepreneur, but showing the vastness of the downside.

Alternatively, find yourself a partner with the skill sets needed to succeed. Have a intelligent, thoughtful, executable and living partnership agreement written by a legal team that truly understands both the law, accounting and business and go for it!

Naveen, 99% of biz newbies need to abide by what you say. They need to get up, jump in that hot rod, turn the key and just go. They will never get to the winners circle if they don’t get out there and beat the competition. Someone else will get there first if you don’t get going.

I was 20 when I went into business full-time. I have not worked a job since ’78. Fortunately I was blessed with inexperience and burning desire to do my own thing withouyt regard to consequences. And trust me, I’ve endured many.

If had waited 20 years to start, I might have been too intelligent to live my dream of business ownership and missed out on all the fun and misery. “you have to get started to get ahead”

I believe your advice does not really apply to hardware entrepreneurs. It is difficult to get VC to invest in hardware startups, also it is not easy to deal with manufacturers. Kickstarters seems nice but it’s practically for US only.